Ziggy's Games

‘indie Android game developer’

Ziggy — Fri, 18 May 2012 14:11:24 +0000

If you type that into Google, it looks like my blog is the first match returned. With Bing, it’s 3rd or 4th. This is mostly Google and Microsoft personalizing search results for me, but it’s still pretty funny. I am very far down on the list of indie Android game developers that matter. Maybe this is a sign that I should spend less time blogging and more time writing games

P.S. It does the same thing on my wife’s PC, as well as some of my friends. But again, since I’ve shared my site with them on Google+, Facebook, Twitter, etc., that’s still personalized search results.

Neil Rajah updated on NOOK store with trial version

Ziggy — Fri, 18 May 2012 03:58:57 +0000

The NOOK store has a neat feature – you can upload 2 apk files, one for the full paid app and one for the trial version. They need to have the same package name and version string. Once the app is approved, the store listing will have options for buying, as well as trying out the free version. In the free version, if you launch the correct intent, it will take the user to the store listing where they can upgrade to the full version.

Since Neil Rajah was listed on the NOOK store, I’ve sold one copy every other day. While not earth-shattering by any means, that’s way better than my Bus Jumper results on the Google Play store, for example. So I think there is potential here for better sales. I figured that the $1.99 price makes people hesitate. Also, the game doesn’t look all that sexy in the screenshots, and I think I have a better shot at making some sales if people try it out first. So, I made a free trial version that has the first 5 levels. Uploaded that and an updated full version today. If it gets approved in a week, it should go live around next Wednesday or Thursday (that’s when they update store listings).

Will be interesting to see if this works

Neil Rajah update

Ziggy — Thu, 17 May 2012 14:47:02 +0000

I just released an update to Neil Rajah. This has a bunch of bug fixes, and one new feature – the ability to unlock levels. I noticed from my Flurry analytics that the number of ‘level died’ events greatly exceeded the number of ‘level completed’ events. Also, there were some sessions where people tried the same level many times in a row, with each attempt ending in death. I saw at least one session where someone tried the same level over 60 times. I’m glad people are finding the game challenging and not frustrating. That’s more patience than I would have But it also felt like a potential opportunity. So now I have unlockers that you can buy from the Swarm store. These aren’t in the in-game ‘diamond store’, so you’ll have to get Swarm coins to buy these. Hopefully this won’t feel like a blatant money grab attempt. We’ll see. I’m hoping that someone will be enticed to spend some Swarm coins in the game to get past a level that he or she is stuck on.

I also started work on new levels, but that needs some more time and tuning. Since the unlocker code was ready to go, and I had several bug fixes that I also wanted to get out, I decided to release this.

The new version is on the Google Play store now, I’ll be updating the other stores later today.

Just Reboot re-reviews Neil Rajah

Ziggy — Sun, 13 May 2012 13:57:35 +0000

I had stumbled upon deidein’s blog while looking for reviews for a different game. His ‘About the Author’ page instantly struck a chord – he’s in his 30s, works in tech, husband, dad, likes Android. Pretty similar to me So I asked him if he’d like to review my game. Well, he did, and the first review didn’t turn out so well The game was crashing a lot, and that left a pretty poor impression on him, as it should. I had just started to realize that my crash reports were indicating a couple of high-frequency crashes, so I decided that I needed to do a good bug fix update. I also started up a conversation with deidein, getting his input on how the game could be better. I didn’t implement everything he suggested, but it was all good advice.

I uploaded a new version with the changes, and asked deidein to take another look. Here’s his updated review. I think he did a pretty good job of covering the essence of the game. And the issues that he points out are definitely valid ones, that I plan to address, time and budget permitting

Neil Rajah reviewed on AppEggs

Ziggy — Fri, 11 May 2012 14:40:53 +0000

AppEggs.com was one of the Android app/game review sites that I had emailed with info on Neil Rajah. They recently contacted me and said that they liked the game, and were going to review it. As far as I can tell (mostly from just checking Alexa), AppEggs seems to be popular in China. So hopefully this will help expand my user base beyond India.

Here’s the link to the review. They even sent me a link to this nifty badge that I can use

This is the second such badge I’ve got, the first one was from Frugal Dads. I don’t think they mean anything at all – at the end of the day, it’s just some HTML code, and probably highlights the other site more than it does anything for me. Maybe I should make a separate page just to show off all my useless badges